Oral habits are learned patterns of muscle contraction and have a very complex nature. They areassociated with anger, hunger, sleep, tooth eruption and fear. Some children even display oral habits for release of mental tension. Such habits are the most frequent cause of these malformations mostly seen in the early childhood and mixed dentition stages. Other than the forces created by the oral habits there are many forces that are acting on the structures of the oral cavity.Oral habits, if persist beyond certain developmental age, can pose great harm to the developing teeth, occlusion, and surrounding oral tissues. In the formative years, almost all children engage in some non-nutritive sucking habits. Clinicians, by proper differential diagnosis and thorough understanding of natural growth and developmental processes, should take a decision for intervening. Parental awareness about the adverse oral habits is also another factor which needs to be looked into, negligence of the parents can become a cause to the dentofacial anomalies in the children. This article was aimed to give an insight into different oral habits and their management as a guide to parents and dentists.
